Chapter 17
Mateo
I fly out of the shower, nearly slipping on the wet tile, as Charlie’s words ring in my ear.
Water drips down my spine as I wrap a towel around my waist, and my brain scrambles, frantically putting the pieces of Charlie’s speech together.
Crush. Feelings. Hard to breathe.
Oh, Dios . I’ve been an asshole. A big, grumpy, jealous asshole.
Thoughts of her with Shaun tore apart my sanity—his hands on her skin, in her hair, tracing the scar on her cheek. Each one stoking the flame of jealousy in my chest until the fire consumed me wholly and burned her in the process.
I’m wrapping a towel around my waist, trying to convince myself this is real, that Charlie is telling me she sees me. The door to the bathroom slams open, and steam wafts around me as I scramble into the cabin.
She’s shoving clothes into her duffle bag, gently laying her Darwin bobblehead on top.
Why is she packing ?
“Charlie?”
Her head jerks up, spearing me with her wild, red-rimmed eyes. Oh, fuck . Fuck, fuck, fuck .
Only twice in the years I’ve known Charlie have I witnessed tears, and in those vulnerable moments, I ignored her flushed cheeks and soft sniffles.
It’s only ever happened after she had a meeting with Cheryl, and when she would disappear to the bathroom, I would leave her an extra chocolate.
Something was going on in her head that she couldn’t process without tears, and witnessing her discomfort led to my own.
I’ve seen her lose the war against her emotions, but I’ve never been the catalyst, and recognizing I’m the origin makes my stomach roil.
Two steps, and I’m standing in front of her, the cold cabin air causing goose bumps to form along my wet skin.
“Did you mean it?” I ask.
“I’m not a liar,” she responds, her nose scrunching like my question is an insult to her character.
One more step, and I’ve closed the space between us. A single, barely perceptible move, and I could touch her, kiss her, claim her.
“You like me?”
I ask the question like a schoolyard boy and not a grown man, but none of it feels real, and I need to hear the words again to know I’m not hallucinating.
“Yes,” she snaps, her patience fraying, “I like you and it’s maddening—what are you doing?”
Her scar pulls taut as I palm her cheek and graze my thumb over the raised flesh. My focus darts to her lips, and I imagine what she would taste like on my tongue.
A thousand unspoken words hang between us as those mesmerizing blue irises stare into mine, so full of fear and hope. She pulls her head back, but I lift my other palm, keeping her close .
I trace her cheekbone with the pad of my thumb, the flesh soft and plush against my calloused skin. She’s so beautiful it aches deep in my chest. The kind of ache you can only crave, demand more of, until you’re consumed by the feeling.
“Charlie.” Her name is a prayer and a plea, a new beginning and years of history.
“Mateo,” she responds, peering up at me beneath long lashes.
Time slows, creeping to a halt, as I dip my head and brush my lips against hers. It’s questioning, hesitant, before I pull away, only a few millimeters.
Barely a kiss, but my heart is pounding, and my brain riots for more.
Charlie pushes up on her toes and crashes into me, her palms splayed against my abdomen as she consumes me whole.
This kiss is nothing like the last. This is a wildfire consuming the last of the oxygen. A hurricane barreling toward shore. An earthquake rattling the ground. It’s tongue and teeth, demanding and controlling as her breasts press against my chest.
My fingers tangle in her hair, the strands like silk while I wrap them around my fist, pulling as I take control, guiding the kiss into something slower, passionate. I’ve thought about this moment for years, and I plan to savor her like the finest tequila, get drunk on her.
Charlie moans when I trail my tongue across the seam of her lips, demanding entry. The space between us shrinks, the towel around my waist perilously close to falling.
A shudder racks down my spine as her hands roam along my skin, up my back, across my chest, down my shoulders.
Each touch is more exploratory than the last, likes she’s learning each curve and angle of my body.
I groan when she deepens the kiss, nipping at my lower lip, and the pleasurable sting spreads through my limbs.
We slam against the cabin wall, and my knee rests between her thigh, holding her upright.
Her hand trails along my jaw before she reaches out and flicks off the light.
My heart skips at the sudden shift to darkness, then skips again when she presses a kiss beneath my ear and down my collarbone, each one softer than the last.
Stars burst along my vision as she kisses the column of my throat, then down to my pectoral muscles. She lingers above my heart, and I have no doubt she can feel my erratic heartbeat. Her finger grazes my skin above the towel, and my eyes snap open.
The darkness hides her mischievous smile, but I know it’s there—as confidently as the earth is round. I cover her hand with my own.
“We should stop,” I say, reaching out to turn on the light. I want to see her.
“I thought you were the smart one,” she purrs, her fingernail dragging down the center of my chest, leaving a trail of sparks along my skin as she inches toward what the towel can no longer conceal. “What happens on the boat can stay on the boat.”
The light snaps back on, and I pull away from her touch. “I want more than sex, Charlie.”
How could she believe that all I want from her is sex?
A crinkle forms between her eyebrows, offering the world’s cutest confused face, but a pit grows in my stomach from her words.
“What? Like cuddling after?” she asks. “I guess we could do that.”
Her tone tells me she’s not sold on the idea, but she waves a hand in dismissal like it’s not a big deal. Wide, frightened pupils tell me it is a massive deal and she’s doing all she can to exude nonchalance.
“No.” I step back. “I want more. Date you. Get to know you.”
“ Date me ?” She slams a finger against her chest. “Like boyfriend and girlfriend?”
“Potentially.” I shrug. It’s the end goal, but she’s freaking out about cuddling, so I’m not going to jump the gun .
“I—Well…What?” she sputters. Maybe it was too bold to say, but then again, she was ready to drop my towel, so not that bold.
“It’s this thing,” I start, knowing it will get a rise out of her, “where two people get to know each other, and if they like each other”—I wiggle my eyebrows—“they become exclusive. ”
“I know how dating works.”
“Just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page, because it’s what I want, bruja. What happens on the boat won’t stay on the boat for me.”
The words I don’t say hang in the air. All or nothing .
I don’t want a silly fling with Charlie, and I’ve spent too long silently standing by. If I can’t be honest with her about what I want, I have no right to pursue anything at all.
But I know what I want, and it’s Charlie. Not for a night or a three-week trip, but tomorrow and every day after until our days run out. I’m sure about her, about us. Only took two years for me to workup the courage to admit it to her.
The adrenaline of her kiss fades, and I realize I’m standing in my towel, nearly naked, while she deliberates on my proposition. I slip on a pair of shorts while she flits her focus around the room, deep in thought.
This is her thinking face—her weighing-every-option face—and I hold my breath, hope vibrating in my chest.
“What are the rules?”
A surprised laugh tumbles out. “Rules? There are no rules, bruja.”
“So we make the rules, then?” Her eyebrows scrunch, and I itch to reach out and smooth away the tension.
“Do you really think—”
Her eyes snap to mine, mildly panicked, so I amend my statement. “We can make rules.”
Structure. Rules. Routine. Charlie relies on these things to make life less daunting. While she worships Charles Darwin and his work on evolution and change, she is not a fan of it in her own life. I’ve seen what happens when she’s faced with abrupt change; she shuts down.
Our relationship has evolved at a glacial pace, and this trip is akin to rapid climate change.
I snag one of her pocket notebooks—the ones she carries with her everywhere—and flip to a clean page.
“Rule number one,” I say, moving to sit beside her. “No more pillow wall.” I want to sleep right beside her, hold her in my arms. “I am Arnold Schwarzenegger, and I am demanding the wall come down.”
Charlie giggles and the sound strikes my solar plexus like a rogue lightning bolt. She steals the notebook.
“Rule number two: No rationing my chocolate intake.”
She’s scribbling it down with a victorious grin when I ask, “What does that have to do with…our situation?”
I don’t know what to call this, don’t know what word to use that won’t freak Charlie out.
“Everything, Mateo.” She clicks her tongue. “We’ll never survive dating if you’re rationing my treats.”
She doesn’t notice her verbiage, but the words stick, and I’m biting back a goofy, boyish grin.
Charlie and I are dating!
I can’t wait to tell my abuela.
“Rule number three,” she continues. “No displays of affection in public. No kissing. No touching.”
“I object to that rule.”
A lot. I object to rule number three emphatically.
“This is a work trip. I am overruling your objection.”
I chuff, but she nervously meets my gaze. “We can kiss…if no one is around.”
She says it like it’s a question, rather than a fact, and I take the notebook from her hand and fling it across the room, stealing a kiss.
She yelps when I drag her against my chest.
“Sealed the deal with a kiss,” I murmur, my grin so grand it could be seen from the International Space Station.
She peers at me, stunned, before she whispers, “Do it again.”
I lean in, offering a quick kiss, nothing more than a peck, but she sighs, and it’s the softest sound I’ve ever heard from Charlie. Lots of huffing and puffing, but nothing as intimate as the sigh she releases now.
“Again,” she demands, and she receives another barely there kiss. Her voice lowers to a hesitant whisper while she asks, “Why were you mad at me?”
“I wasn’t mad at you, bruja. I was jealous.”
“Oh.” She tries to school her features, but her nose twitches and the apples of her cheeks flush.
It pleases her to know I was jealous, even if she’s trying to hide it.
She dips out of my hold, moving her half-packed bag back to its corner and returning her trinkets and bobbles to the desk, fiddling with the placement.
I lean back on my palms, content to watch her exist.
“Where were you going to go?” I ask.
“Sofía’s room, and if she said no, I was going to claim a deck chair.”
She gently places Sir Charles Darwin the Bobblehead on the desk, surrounded by all of her crystals, a shrine to her icon. I bit my tongue when she decorated the first time, pulling a trinket out, one by one, and finding the perfect spot on the small desk space.
“You would have rather slept on a deck chair than with me?”
I try to ignore the stabbing sensation in my gut.
“After I confessed I had a crush on you and said you smell like a breeze, I thought about throwing myself overboard to avoid the embarrassment of facing you. ”
My laugh is deep, worsening when she punches my shoulder and disappears into the bathroom.
“A summer breeze, huh?” I yell through the door, “Do I also smell like sunshi—”
The tease dries up on my tongue as Charlie steps out of the bathroom wearing a bubblegum-pink silk pajama set that leaves little for the imagination.
Small strawberries decorate the fabric, and she shifts on her feet, wringing her hands.
A long, straight scar starts at her mid-thigh, disappearing beneath her shorts.
I’ve lost function of my tongue and the beating of my heart, which races erratically in my chest.
Charlie scans the room as I stare, enraptured by her beauty. She coughs, and I shake away her siren grip, only then noticing her discomfort.
“Can we watch TikToks before bed?” She twirls a loose strand of hair, inching toward the bed. “I-I like when we watch them together.”
I hear what she doesn’t say. She was upset we didn’t watch them together last night .
What’s happening is foreign, odd. There’s an air of nervousness, both Charlie’s and my own, but the exhilaration of the opportunity and unknown flows through my veins.
“Sure, bruja,” I say, my voice hoarse. “We can watch them every night, if you’d like.”
“Deal.” Charlie wets her lips, and pleasure trickles down my spine. So, so softly, she asks, “Seal it with a kiss?”
She asks as if she expects me to say no, when in reality, that question is an answer to one of my many wishes when it comes to her.
Leaning down, I graze the scar along her collarbone, and as she shivers beneath my touch, I seal the deal with a kiss.